unless she was critiquing Figgy's paintings, in which case, keep on keepin on.

Don't be silly Tleex: borealis is a simpleton lacking self reliance that would never criticize something presented as good on an art book. She(?) even thinks Matisse and Cezanne are worth mentioning as examples of artists

Halfwits like borealis don't know art history as deeply as enlightened and hypereducated masters like myself: Most artists considered great during their lifetimes are now not even remembered (and rightly so). The same will happen to most of the decadent artists of the twentieth century. Picasso is partly an exception because cubism is intellectually sound. But he is a Giotto to Dali's Leonardo: The rough initiator, not the great master. His name will be known to experts, not to the masses, whose taste is more honest, and falls not to pseudo intellectual nonsense.

Damn, you don't even have to like someone's art to decide whether it is good or not, you just have to see it, preferably in person. And Figuer has ample opportunity, of which opportunity I am jealous, but he likely makes little use of it.

It's difficult enough to be a painter in the era of instant multiples, without further hampering your own efforts by aping the brushwork of who knows what second rate artists, which from the examples I saw, is what he has done to himself. he'd be better off currently by studying whatever authentic local folk art is available and riffing off that than what he appears to be doing.

I don't know how old Figuer is; perhaps he still has time to mature creatively.

Turn your old canvases to the wall, Figuer, go out and observe, come back and paint something without preconceived notions of what is 'good art'. You might surprise yourself.

What a moron. I have travelled extensively and seen in person the works of all major artist, both classical and 'modern'. Been to the Moma and Guggenheim many, many times. When I wrote that I had never left P.R. I meant that I had never lived anywhere else, not that I hadn't traveled outside. You are incredibly stupid.

Figuer's art criticism is cranky and likely based on a couple books written by some of the more backward critics whose works were rejected as second rate in their time.

Contrary to nit wits such as yourself, I don't base my opinions on what others write, but on my experience. For instance, I saw the largest exposition ever of Matise's work in the National Gallery: utter crap. Once spent half an hour looking at a Pollock on the Moma: trash.

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, after reading which Figuer decided his own work

I base my work on what I like and feel, not on what I read about art.

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, being more like their's than, say, Robert Smithson's or Rauschenberg's

Those clowns.

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Damn, you don't even have to like someone's art to decide whether it is good or not, you just have to see it, preferably in person. And Figuer has ample opportunity, of which opportunity I am jealous, but he likely makes little use of it.

It's difficult enough to be a painter in the era of instant multiples, without further hampering your own efforts by aping the brushwork of who knows what second rate artists,

Oh, so Vermeer and Velazquez are second rate artists.

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which from the examples I saw, is what he has done to himself. he'd be better off currently by studying whatever authentic local folk art is available and riffing off that than what he appears to be doing.

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I don't know how old Figuer is; perhaps he still has time to mature creatively.

The great among the great like myself, by which I mean the michelangelos, velazquezes, titians, el grecos, etc. keep evolving till they die. The prophecies claim I will live till the hundreds, so I still have many decades ahead.

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Turn your old canvases to the wall, Figuer, go out and observe, come back and paint something without preconceived notions of what is 'good art'. You might surprise yourself.

Yes, if I followed the advice of a nitwit such as yourself I would surprise myself, and then proceed to jump off a bridge.

No. It is a fact that such art is nothing of value, and that pretending it is indicates intellectual dysfunction on a monumental scale (indeed, the value is recognized as not residing in the work, but in the fictional narrative that surrounds it). Such pseudointellectual exercises are the mother of postmodernism, and keep nourishing it.

Did you actually attend an art college or just take one of those $35 correspondence courses?

You sound, once the words are reduced to one or two syllables, exactly like the ignoramus who says "I don't know anything about art but I know what I like".

'tis a pity I am one of those ignoramuses. (I don't think I know enough art history to claim to know anything about art- I do know a few techniques however, but that's not the same thing at all.) Right now, I know what I like. But I'm sure there's lots of art I don't know that I'd like- I'd not seen any of Frida Kahlo's work before a recent exhibition of hers, but I liked it a lot. I think the thing I like most about art is discovering new stuff I like.

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There is bad conceptual art and good conceptual art, same as with any creative genre. The good stuff stands on its own, within its cultural context, without the need for 'pseudointellectual exercises'. As you would know if you were well versed in modern art history. Or any art history. Or even managed to exist within a milieu of recognized modern artists. As it stands, you sound like a disgruntled and resentful throwback, the kind of person who'd have trash-talked Rousseau, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Moore, et al in their day. Further back, you'd have dissed the inclusion of perspective effects in paintings.

Love Rousseau, Van Gogh, Not so fussed about Picasso- I just don't really get the abstract/cubist movement. I don't think it helps that I'm mostly a photographer, a medium that doesn't easily lend itself to abstraction. Its do-able, but you really have to think hard about light and shadow. When I paint and draw its mostly palaeontological reconstructions- so realism is essential. Matisse and Cezanne I do like- I'm a big fan of the impressionists. My favourite painiters are probably The Group of Seven. I love Moore mostly because of the way people interact with it- I love the fact that children use his sculptures as a climbing frame- the way people responded to Olafur Eliasson's "The Weather Project" at Tate Modern's Turbine Hall had a similar effect.

It's difficult enough to be a painter in the era of instant multiples, without further hampering your own efforts by aping the brushwork of who knows what second rate artists,

Oh, so Vermeer and Velazquez are second rate artists.

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which from the examples I saw, is what he has done to himself. he'd be better off currently by studying whatever authentic local folk art is available and riffing off that than what he appears to be doing.

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I don't know how old Figuer is; perhaps he still has time to mature creatively.

The great among the great like myself, by which I mean the michelangelos, velazquezes, titians, el grecos, etc. keep evolving till they die. The prophecies claim I will live till the hundreds, so I still have many decades ahead.

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Turn your old canvases to the wall, Figuer, go out and observe, come back and paint something without preconceived notions of what is 'good art'. You might surprise yourself.

Yes, if I followed the advice of a nitwit such as yourself I would surprise myself, and then proceed to jump off a bridge.

The work I've seen of yours in no way resembles anything influenced by Vermeer or Velazquez. You are fooling yourself if you think it does.

Do you know you sound like a Monty Python skit when you try to insult people?

No. It is a fact that such art is nothing of value, and that pretending it is indicates intellectual dysfunction on a monumental scale (indeed, the value is recognized as not residing in the work, but in the fictional narrative that surrounds it). Such pseudointellectual exercises are the mother of postmodernism, and keep nourishing it.

Did you actually attend an art college or just take one of those $35 correspondence courses?

You sound, once the words are reduced to one or two syllables, exactly like the ignoramus who says "I don't know anything about art but I know what I like".

'tis a pity I am one of those ignoramuses. (I don't think I know enough art history to claim to know anything about art- I do know a few techniques however, but that's not the same thing at all.) Right now, I know what I like. But I'm sure there's lots of art I don't know that I'd like- I'd not seen any of Frida Kahlo's work before a recent exhibition of hers, but I liked it a lot. I think the thing I like most about art is discovering new stuff I like.

I doubt you'd self-importantly state that out loud ("I don't know anything about art but I know what I like"). Usually someone who says that likes Kinkade and Rockwell and considers anything else to be rot.

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There is bad conceptual art and good conceptual art, same as with any creative genre. The good stuff stands on its own, within its cultural context, without the need for 'pseudointellectual exercises'. As you would know if you were well versed in modern art history. Or any art history. Or even managed to exist within a milieu of recognized modern artists. As it stands, you sound like a disgruntled and resentful throwback, the kind of person who'd have trash-talked Rousseau, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Moore, et al in their day. Further back, you'd have dissed the inclusion of perspective effects in paintings.

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Love Rousseau, Van Gogh, Not so fussed about Picasso- I just don't really get the abstract/cubist movement. I don't think it helps that I'm mostly a photographer, a medium that doesn't easily lend itself to abstraction. Its do-able, but you really have to think hard about light and shadow. When I paint and draw its mostly palaeontological reconstructions- so realism is essential. Matisse and Cezanne I do like- I'm a big fan of the impressionists. My favourite painiters are probably The Group of Seven. I love Moore mostly because of the way people interact with it- I love the fact that children use his sculptures as a climbing frame- the way people responded to Olafur Eliasson's "The Weather Project" at Tate Modern's Turbine Hall had a similar effect.

Anyway, as you were...

Wrt Picasso, I don't like most of his work very much, but I do appreciate the progression he made and the influences he embraced over his career. Without Picasso, it might have taken a lot longer for Westerners to grasp the beauty of African art so they would quit burning it as unChristian trash or tossing it on rubbish heaps.

I saw Moore's plaster models for several of his large bronzes in Toronto once. They were astoundingly beautiful. I hadn't thought about Moore much; I'm not as interested in sculpture as in other media. The bare white plaster had been varnished to preserve it, and some yellowing had naturally occurred. They looked like gigantic polished alien bones, gorgeous.

No. It is a fact that such art is nothing of value, and that pretending it is indicates intellectual dysfunction on a monumental scale (indeed, the value is recognized as not residing in the work, but in the fictional narrative that surrounds it). Such pseudointellectual exercises are the mother of postmodernism, and keep nourishing it.

Did you actually attend an art college or just take one of those $35 correspondence courses?

You sound, once the words are reduced to one or two syllables, exactly like the ignoramus who says "I don't know anything about art but I know what I like".

'tis a pity I am one of those ignoramuses. (I don't think I know enough art history to claim to know anything about art- I do know a few techniques however, but that's not the same thing at all.) Right now, I know what I like. But I'm sure there's lots of art I don't know that I'd like- I'd not seen any of Frida Kahlo's work before a recent exhibition of hers, but I liked it a lot. I think the thing I like most about art is discovering new stuff I like.

I doubt you'd self-importantly state that out loud ("I don't know anything about art but I know what I like"). Usually someone who says that likes Kinkade and Rockwell and considers anything else to be rot.

I'd say it, but not self-importantly. More in the "I'm terribly sorry for inflicting this cliche on you" way.

True story- Many years ago I had one of those milk-round mini-interviews at a local shopping centre for a position in a Thomas Kincaid franchise. I used the phrase in the interview, and then mentioned impressionists. They didn't call back. (This may have been a lucky escape.)

Wrt Picasso, I don't like most of his work very much, but I do appreciate the progression he made and the influences he embraced over his career. Without Picasso, it might have taken a lot longer for Westerners to grasp the beauty of African art so they would quit burning it as unChristian trash or tossing it on rubbish heaps.

More reasons to hate Picasso...

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I saw Moore's plaster models for several of his large bronzes in Toronto once. They were astoundingly beautiful. I hadn't thought about Moore much; I'm not as interested in sculpture as in other media. The bare white plaster had been varnished to preserve it, and some yellowing had naturally occurred. They looked like gigantic polished alien bones, gorgeous.

Paleontological models are indeed beautiful. He should have used his talents to help further scientific research, not obstruct plazas with enlarged play doe figurines.

No. It is a fact that such art is nothing of value, and that pretending it is indicates intellectual dysfunction on a monumental scale (indeed, the value is recognized as not residing in the work, but in the fictional narrative that surrounds it). Such pseudointellectual exercises are the mother of postmodernism, and keep nourishing it.

Did you actually attend an art college or just take one of those $35 correspondence courses?

You sound, once the words are reduced to one or two syllables, exactly like the ignoramus who says "I don't know anything about art but I know what I like".

'tis a pity I am one of those ignoramuses. (I don't think I know enough art history to claim to know anything about art- I do know a few techniques however, but that's not the same thing at all.) Right now, I know what I like. But I'm sure there's lots of art I don't know that I'd like- I'd not seen any of Frida Kahlo's work before a recent exhibition of hers, but I liked it a lot. I think the thing I like most about art is discovering new stuff I like.

I doubt you'd self-importantly state that out loud ("I don't know anything about art but I know what I like"). Usually someone who says that likes Kinkade and Rockwell and considers anything else to be rot.

I'd say it, but not self-importantly. More in the "I'm terribly sorry for inflicting this cliche on you" way.

True story- Many years ago I had one of those milk-round mini-interviews at a local shopping centre for a position in a Thomas Kincaid franchise. I used the phrase in the interview, and then mentioned impressionists. They didn't call back. (This may have been a lucky escape.)

Haha I got kicked out of a Kincaid shop once for making fun of the paintings.

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In the land of the talentless, the one-trick pony is king.